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in hazy light waiting to tell me that Donny didn’t have walking pneumonia, as we thought; he had cancer.
Now, I know how I’d receive that message. A sharp breath inward, a clenched fist, a tightening, protec- tive muscle. Now I would first feel anger, and then I would direct my energy toward protection, control, a narrowing of focus. What I know now that I didn’t know then, is that cancer is a process, one must get in line, one must wait their turn, be patient, follow directions.
Back then, I just collapsed in tears, tears whose ori- gin I could not fathom and whose energy and volume were extreme. My subconscious knew this was the end and a beginning. The choking of sobs was all I could show, the only sense I could make. Cancer was chemo, and then, not long after, death; that’s all we knew about it then.
~
Tommy, 2015
That Sunday night, the night of Donny’s wake, my second oldest brother, Tommy, entered late; his flight was delayed. He was the one who shared a bedroom, dorm room, and even friends with Donny, but some- how they were not close. Tommy was not one to send a birthday card, make a call, reach out just to say hi.
As he stood beside me in front of the coffin, I could tell he was agitated. No time for a much-needed drink. He crossed and uncrossed his arms in front of his chest, hard to accomplish in a suit jacket. He was making me nervous; his anxiety palpable. I intro- duced him to all the people passing in the reception line I knew. “This is my brother Tommy from Texas,”
I repeated awkwardly, trying to make him more com- fortable, falling short.
~
Mary, 2001
I stood on that 30th street platform hundreds of times, and I would stand there a hundred more, but
I had never run into my sister there before. I picked her out easily; a bright head scarf emerging from
the throng of commuters. She carried what to oth- ers might be an art portfolio. I knew even then it was not art; it was full of scans. She was coming from
the renowned breast cancer doctor at the renowned institution nearby.
Onboard, we sat across the aisle, shouting above the rush hour din and the clunks and screeches of the train.
Palliative care, the new words I heard that day.
“I cannot be cured...so they just keep the cancer under control until...” Her voice, lost in the other conversa- tions emerging from the crowd, her face, blank.
Was this what shock looks like? Do I look the same?
I remember only the uncomfortable figure of silence, a third sister, sitting, wedged between us, for the rest of the ride. The racket of normalcy pressed in on us, defined us as different from everyone else, or so it seemed.
~
Donny, 2015
I didn’t see my brother die as I imagined I would. Somehow, I assumed I would be there. There were lots of people there: Mary and Bub, their husbands, my brother’s wife and daughters, plenty of his many friends. But not me.
I was at the Dark Horse, dinner with a friend. I knew my brother was in the hospital, but it was at that stage where he was in and out a lot. The last text from Bub: Blood pressure good, breathing good, resting comfortably. I kept the phone beside me on the table. When the screen lit up, I saw it was a call and not a text. My body instinctively rose up and headed for the exit.
“Mag, you need to say goodbye to Donny now. He is slipping away. I am holding the phone to his ear.”
No time for explanations.
I crouched and cried into my brother’s dying ear. Leaning into a cold wall I searched my panicked mind for words, something good, something right. But I repeated one vague thing: “Donny, I know. I know everything.”
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